“What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not accept evil?”— Job 2:10 The streets around the bridge always put me on edge. Homeless people congregate around the massive stone pylons, using them as buttresses for their provisional squats. The area is fairly sheltered, and because it’s well known as a homeless hangout, residents are pretty much left in peace to haul out their shopping carts and tarps at night. Most of them clear away during the day—a fact that confounds Steph. She struggles with the concept of anyone fitting all their belongings into one lone shopping cart. Last time we’d gotten stuck at this end of town, she’d speculated to no end as to where all the shopping carts and their loot are hidden during the day. I mean, she has a point. They must go somewhere. By the time we turned onto a small side street, the last of the daylight was gone and there were no streetlamps. The evening was clear and there was a bite in the air, but the absence of light always unnerves me, and, of course, exiles—whether once of light or dark—prefer to play in the cover of night. Entertaining themselves with the pain of humans is high on the to-do list for exiles. They have the power to infiltrate imagination and pretty much put whatever horror takes their fancy inside someone’s head. Some of them use it to taunt and frighten, while others use it as a kind of strategy. Over time, according to Griffin, they’ve used this ability to throw humans off their tracks entirely. Apparently, that’s where the myths of vampires, werewolves, and other things creepy, even fairies and elves, come from. If exiles sense that their supernatural power has been detected and they are not able to eliminate the problem using their preferred method of slaughter, they simply reveal themselves as something other than human, anything but what they really are. It makes sense. I was learning that people are, on the whole, more at ease believing in vampires or aliens than vengeful angels intent on a biblical Armageddon. Yes, we are naïve by choice. The narrow street was littered with homeless people lying on flattened cardboard, the lucky ones wrapped in torn sleeping bags, the rest burrowed in piles of old newspapers. I scanned the brick walls, which ran at least five stories high on each side. The protection they offered was part of what made this strip so popular. Lincoln walked slowly beside me, his hand going to my elbow for a moment—a silent reminder that I needed to be alert. I tried to ignore the flush of heat that came whenever I felt his touch. I stopped walking and he looked at me, a question in his emerald-green eyes. I smiled before I could stop myself. “I think I can sense them,” I said. I didn’t think; I knew. I’d been tasting apple for the past couple of blocks, and the sound of birds flying, smashing through trees, was not one heard by others nearby. These are my angelic senses.
Most Grigori have one. Some, like Lincoln, have two. Lucky me, I have all five, and I seem to feel them more acutely than any other Grigori I have met. Great to be special and all, but having an extra five senses can be, well, overwhelming. “How long have you been sensing them?” I hesitated. He saw. “Violet…how long?” I was worried Lincoln would judge me, that the fact I could sense them from so much farther away would be a form of supernatural condescension and alienate me. “Not long. Maybe one street back,” I said. Lincoln raised his eyebrows at me. “Three streets back.” The corners of his mouth curled. He was holding back his Cheshire. I was a fool—he was proud of me. I rolled my eyes at his twinkling expression. “They’re in the street. There are two of them,” I said. He nodded, now refocused. “I can smell them.” His primary angelic sense was smell, though he could also hear. I returned his nod. The fragrance of sickly sweet flowers flooded the area so strongly, it even overpowered the stench of the street. He took half a step in front of me and I let him. I may be able to sense them from farther away, but Lincoln could size them up and pick the strongest much faster than I could. They emerged from the darkness, looking human but not at the same time. Both were dressed casually, although one had bloodstains all the way up his right arm. I quickly took in my surroundings again, spotting one, then two, then three figures tucked into their sleeping bags, unmoving. Energy hummed through my body and a cruel thrum worked its way up into the base of my ribs. I had let it in once before, had allowed the energy to take over my body, forcing me to the ground, paralyzing me in the pain of others. I grabbed Lincoln’s arm. He didn’t look back, but I had his attention. “They’re all dead. They’ve killed them all,” I said, all too aware that the exiles were moving closer by the second. Agents of death.
“Linc, should I do it?” I whispered. We had such a honed connection, he knew exactly what I meant. Though most Grigori need physical contact to return an exile, I had discovered I don’t—and I can take out multiples at the same time. I also am the first Grigori who can take an exile’s power against his will. But the full extent of my power was still an unkown, and that left everyone…nervous. “No. Your power’s spiking all over the place. Are you okay?” Lincoln replied. The exiles were getting closer. My senses were on the edge but I had them under control…just. “I’m okay. I could try.” “Stay focused. Stick to the plan.” His tone left little room for discussion. Great. The plan. The one that has me all dagger happy. Except I’m not. Lincoln and Griffin had insisted that I still had to enter combat the same way as all other Grigori, that it wasn’t enough for me to rely on my power to get me out of everything. In theory, I agreed. But at this very moment—standing smack bang in the middle of a slaughter zone while two overstimulated, decidedly unhinged exiles moved in on us—it seemed extreme. The exiles stopped in front of us, smiling. They assessed us the way only otherworldly creatures can—a flick of the eyes, showing a defensive mechanism and hunger at the same time. Exiles, whether light or dark, hate Grigori and love killing us above all others. We are their greatest, their only, threat. If exiles are successful in eliminating the Grigori, there will be no hope for anyone else. “You are a little late,” said the shorter of the two, the one with the bloodied arm, like he’d been waiting for us. Lincoln had already positioned himself level with him, not that I needed the heads up that this one was the more derailed of the two. “It’s a pity. We would have liked to keep a few to tear apart in front of you. I prefer an audience. But we got bored.” He smiled, showing perfectly white teeth, pink full lips. Had I not been so sure of the senses, I would have sworn he was a sixteen-year-old jock. That was the thing about exiles: they all looked healthy and strong, in their prime. “You knew we were coming?” Lincoln asked, twisting his body a little more, shielding me.
The exile laughed. “I have a message for you.” “And I thought your days as messengers were over.” The jock-looking exile licked his lips, barely restraining himself. “The reward of getting to kill you”—he glanced at me—“and her, is sufficient incentive.” “Well?” Lincoln said, showing no concern. The exile’s smile broadened and he spoke slowly. “Nahilius said to tell you he’s coming for what’s yours.” Lincoln stiffened. The exile cackled loudly. “Make your choice,” Lincoln growled, giving the exile the opportunity to choose to have his power stripped and become only human, or be returned. There was no denying that, when he went into fighter mode, he was lethal. But so were they. “Choice?” The jock boy laughed. “So kind of you to offer. I think I will choose decapitation for you and something a bit more…fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants for her.” He looked to me, his buddy laughing away. Then I saw it. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but it was definitely there. Recognition. He could sense me, could sense my power. Of course, given what he could sense and what he’d probably heard I could do to him, he should have run. Instead, true to exile form, he lunged toward me, relishing the challenge. Lincoln’s arm shot out, his forearm slamming into the exile’s neck, breaking his speed and redirecting his attention. That was all I had time to see before the other one wound up for a right hook to my head. Why is it that they all know how to fight? Exiles seemed to come to earth and take human forms, and, although none of them had great technique, they all knew how to hit. Hard. Luckily for me, thanks to many hours of training and some angelic augmentation, so did I. We exchanged blow for blow. I’m not short for a girl, but he was tall for a man, so he had that over me. He got in a few good knocks to my face, but he really favored his right side, so I just kept moving toward it, getting nice and close so he couldn’t gain any leverage. I was getting on top of things; a series of kicks to his legs had left him shaky. I hadn’t landed one in that magic spot that would blow out his knee, but he was stumbling. A glow of colors lit up to my right. I knew what it was, but I looked anyway. Lincoln had the jock in a headlock and as I turned, I saw him plunge his dagger into the exile, returning him. What I failed to see was the tall exile’s fist heading straight for my ear. It was a sucker punch,
but then these guys had no morals, let alone fighting ethics. I was caught off-balance and could feel blood seeping down the side of my neck as I fell. My hand went instinctively to my dagger as the exile came down on top of me. My fingers wrapped around the hilt. There was an opening. If I hadn’t hesitated, I could have gotten the dagger out; I could have returned him. Instead, my shoulder smashed into the gravel road and I quickly rolled onto my back in an attempt to evade him. He collided into me so hard I felt the top of my spine grind into the road and screamed. I punched him in the face twice, but he was too close now and had taken the advantage. He drove his knee into my stomach and drew back a clenched fist for what I knew was going to hurt a lot. But it didn’t. He never got his chance. All I saw was Lincoln’s dagger coming through the exile’s chest, the glory of his power’s colorful mist, and then, the exile was gone. Lincoln stood above me, strong and ready for anything. I looked into his fighting eyes and they softened for a moment. He put his hand out and helped me up. It was warm and real, and he pulled me into him and wrapped an arm around me to help me walk. “I couldn’t…” I wanted to explain, to give an acceptable excuse. I was letting him down by not stepping up. I wasn’t just putting myself in danger, but everyone else as well. The bodies of the exiles had disappeared, but we were still surrounded by a killing field of homeless dead people no one would claim and barely any would even notice were gone. I felt bad walking away, like I was being disrespectful, but there was no option. We’d inform the police anonymously later. We couldn’t risk getting pulled into murder investigations we could never explain. “You did great. I can’t sense any more of them,” he said, looking around. “Can you?” He sounded unusually anxious. “No,” I said. “Do you know what they were talking about? Who’s Nahilius?” Lincoln hesitated. “Just a troublemaker. No one for you to worry about.” “Oh,” I said, keeping my eye on him as he looked away. Lincoln tightened the arm he had around me, supporting me. “It’s just going to take some time. What you went through…in the desert. It’s okay that you need some time.” “You’re upset with me. I can see it,” I said, wincing at the pain in both my ear and the back of my neck.
“What’s the first rule in combat, Violet?” He spoke in his training voice. This time my cringe wasn’t at the pain, but at the stupidity that I was about to have to admit to. “Never take your eyes off your opponent.” “Exactly.” We walked on. He didn’t need to say any more. We both knew this one was all on me. When we turned the corner, out into a busier street, he pulled me a little closer protectively. I loved being tucked in his arms, wrapped in his warmth, and wished we could have our chance to explore what we were to one another. “We need to get you away from here so I can heal you.” A drunk man dressed in a suit of rags slumped against the wall by the roadside, and as we passed, his almost-empty bottle fell from his hands, clinking into the gutter and making me look down. I stopped walking. I could feel something. Not the senses, something else. It was…stale. A lingering shadow of something… I reached down and picked up the bottle to hand to the derelict, but I hadn’t thought it through, and as I straightened, I paid the price with a wicked head spin followed by the throb of all throbs from my neck right up to my temples. I shut my eyes briefly and took a slow breath. Lincoln steadied me. “You dropped this,” I said, holding the bottle out to the drifter. The man looked up. So many things happened within a split second. First, the effort of reaching out made the man lose balance and his upper half joined his lower half on the ground again. Second, I gasped. Third, Lincoln pushed me behind him and pulled out his dagger in the middle of a busy street. Then…Onyx burst out laughing.